Alabama's Republican Senators cast their votes with the minority
Wednesday as lawmakers approved a two-year spending deal that will prevent a
repeat of October's government shutdown. The measure passed 64-36, with both
Sen. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby voting against the plan.

Shelby said bill "increases spending now on the empty
promise that it will reduce spending later.

"Nobody should believe that those cuts will occur later when
this very agreement undoes the cuts that were just recently enacted. We need a
budget that places government on a sustainable financial path. This deal
doesn't come close," he said.

Nine Republican Senators voted with the 55 Democrats and
Independents to pass the budget deal. The plan, which came out of negotiations
between House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Senate Budget Chairwoman
Patty Murray, D-Wash., sets discretionary spending at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and
$1.014 trillion in 2015. The bill doesn't include tax hikes or entitlement
reforms.

It also includes $63 billion in sequester relief over two
years - split evenly between defense and nondefense programs - and reduces the
deficit by $23 billion.

Among the bill's most controversial provisions includes
increasing the amount new federal workers will pay towards their retirement and
decreasing the cost of living adjustment given to working-age military
retirees. Those two proposals are expected to save $12 billion over the next
decade.

Sessions has been one of the most outspoken critics of the
cuts to military retirement. His efforts to introduce an amendment to do away
with the cuts were unsuccessful and he said that was only one of the deal's problem
areas.

"I do not believe
this legislation is sound," Sessions said. "I think it takes us down the road
of eroding an individual's power to restrain spending."

Sessions said problems with the bill could have been fixed
if Senators had been allowed to add amendments to the original proposal.

"The Senate is supposed to function as a deliberative body
where bills are carefully considered, amended, and debated. Instead, Majority
Leader Reid rushed through this closed-door deal without a single amendment.
His conference blocked my amendment, for instance, to replace pension cuts for
wounded warriors with the closure of a tax welfare loophole.

"At present we are left with a tax-and-spend plan that also
removes a procedural tool to prevent Democrats from exceeding spending limits
and raising taxes again in the future."

The measure, which overwhelmingly passed the House, now goes
to President Barack Obama who has said he will sign it into law.